Welsh Potential

Recruitment company sees demand for leaders increase.

UK & Europe

Odgers Berndtson has said Wales is becoming the destination of choice for senior executives looking to advance their careers. The Wales based recruitment company said there were opportunities being created by many of the country’s leading public, private and third sector organisations in the country.

The recruitment business is the only blue-chip search firm with a dedicated team based in Wales and has seen a five-year spike in the number of Welsh-based organisations both looking for and successfully attracting director-level and above talent.

“The pace of change taking place throughout Wales right now is simply breath-taking,” said Dr Marc Pollentine, associate consultant at Odgers Berndtson. “This is having a significant impact on the attractiveness of Welsh-based organisations themselves and the whole nation in general.

“Just a few years ago we would talk about the investment and development plans that had been earmarked in places such as Cardiff and Swansea especially,” he said. “Today, many of these projects have either been fulfilled or are visibly underway.”

Pollentine argues that in seeing these plans bear fruit, the nation has been boosted as a primary destination of choice for a plethora of vastly experienced executives from around the world. These people are already at the top of their game but eager to continue advancing their careers and take them to the next level.

Over the last 12 months, Odgers Berndtson (Wales) has been appointed and successfully fulfilled several high-profile roles, including those of Dame Shan Morgan, Permanent Secretary to the Welsh Government. There has also been a notable shift away from the traditional Boardroom set-up towards a C-suite constituting a greater mix of talent at Non-Executive level, as Jemma Terry, managing partner, explains: “One of the key lessons we have learned over the last year or so is that economic predictions can – and often are – wrong,” she says. “This time last year, it was suggested that confidence in the Welsh and wider-UK economy would slide, but the opposite happened.

“Welsh organisations not only looked to consolidate their trading positions, many of them invested and targeted further growth,” she continued. “This created a vacuum which resulted in an increased demand for those with the experience, skills and know-how to play a leading role during this period of change and growth. Cue the greater need for Non-Executive Directors.”

With a stronger than anticipated start to 2018, Odgers Berndtson Wales, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2018, has revised its predictions upwards for the year ahead.

This comes on the back of a clutch of new high-profile Non-Executive assignments that it is current working on, including Chair of Admiral Financial Services, Trustees for the Welsh National Opera, and Trustees of Aberystwyth University.